GIANT

Giant is a three-heads dubstep producers collective based in St.Petersburg, Russia. With three Pentium PCs, Fruity Loops and only three-year background in dubstep, these 20 year-olds have releases on some of the biggest dubstep labels - Dubpolice and Subway. Ekta, Nersa and Enei chatted with me over the webcam one very early morning.

We are very critical about our work. There's always something we need to fix, or redo.

Let's start with how you got into dubstep.
Ekta (Max): First time I heard dubstep on the mix. I was like "what the hell is this?" Then I found out it was called dubstep, the new style, and I started to lurk through the record stores listening to Skream, Loefah anything that was out for sale then. It was about two summers back. Yeah...
Nersa (Roma): Then I discovered it! Max showed me Kode 9 video. What was it?
Ekta: Samurai!
Nersa: Yea, yea! Samurai. That was the first time I heard dubstep.
Enei (Alex): I didn't like dubstep at all in the beginning, I was into drum and bass, but then I tried to play dubstep and yeah...

How did you guys find each other?
Enei: Max and I went to kindergarten together, played transformers together, went to school... Roma wasn't even there, we met him in college.
Ekta: I bought this free software (yea, yea... bought it) called "eJay", please don't write that. Just say I worked with loops. Then I saw my classmate's big brother messing with Fruity Loops, so I got it and started producing.
Enei: Yea, and then I came over to his place and saw he was doing some weird Fruity Loops stuff, so I tried it out myself, and wrote a track in his kitchen.
Ekta:, I dragged you into it. I told you to do it cause you are a classically trained musician, man.
Nersa: I moved here from Norilsk, the North, for college, came to a DJ club and met these two. I saw they were very serious about music, so we kicked it together.

How did your first track come about?
Enei: We first wrote a track for our school disco. It was kinda housy, drum'n'bass'y, more on the jungle side. But seriously we started about three years ago.

You guys are coming out on Dubpolice and Subway now after just three years. Big Up! Which one of your tracks do you consider your favorite?
All three: We haven't yet written it!
Nersa: You can't have a favorite track.
Ekta We are all very critical about our work. There's always something we need to fix, or redo. I personally can never have a track finished. I just leave it to Alex. I have about 200 tracks on my computer, that are not finished.

What's your most played record?
Ekta: I like 70% of Dubpolice releases. Caspa is probably my favorite. "Well 'Ard" is pretty damn sick.

If you need to pick just one track to represent dubstep genre, what would you chose?
Nersa: Digital Mystikz. Anything from DMZ label.

What else are you guys listening to besides dubstep?
Enei We all are listening to a huge variety of music, I think any musical composition can inspire in many different ways.
Ekta: Yea, I am very inspired by a lot of British music. That's where the roots are.

How's the dubstep scene in Russia?
Nersa: Argh... seems like it only exists in this room in St.Petersburg.
Enei: Everyone knows dubstep, but there are no people to throw events, to produce good material.
Ekta: In Moscow it's all good, developed and all, but here it's pretty dead.

What's the biggest dubstep night in Moscow?
Ekta: Capital Bass. The series of events where they bring dubstep stars.
Nersa: They brought Kode 9, Skream, Plastician, Loefah, Benga, Tes la Rok
Enei: We don't even have any good clubs with a sound system descent enough to play dubstep. Dubstep room at a rave is usually tiny, next to the bathroom, or a bar, and only two-three djs.

What's your advice to the new producers?
Enei: Just listen. Listen more.
Ekta: Less copying
Ekta: More self-criticism.

Hey! Who's that walking around in the background?
Enei: Oh, that's the guy who writes all the tracks for us.

• It's our wildest dream......to produce like Timbaland or Pharrell
• Big up to...our parents

• 10 Ultimate Dubstep tracks:
  (compiled by Giant)
  Caspa - Where is my money
  Unitz - The drop
  Luke Envoy - Mugen
  Loefah - Rufage
  Coki - Shattered
  Jakes & Joker - 3k lane
  Matty G - Cuttin n scratchin
  The Others - Africa VIP
  Peverelist - Infinity is now
  Martyn - Vancouver
  

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